This is a post about listening. I've been conducting an experiment over the past few weeks in really trying to listen to my body.
It started when we went north on our soon-to-be-aborted trip to Seattle. We started off at our friends' farm over Labor Day. Because I had a whole week off and because it was going to be so relaxing going up to Seattle on the train (I know, I know, I just say that to make the gods chuckle now and then), I thought I'd try to stop taking the various medications and over the counter pills that I had gotten pretty used to taking.
It wasn't an actual issue, but I was starting to notice that there was a little bit of Judy Garland going on. I had started taking an Ativan at night to sleep when I was riddled with anxiety prior to the first surgery. I then kept taking it during chemo because it has a double benefit of calming me down as well as quelling nausea. It didn't seem to have any negative side effects, and I would always get a good night's sleep after taking it.
After awhile, though, I thought that maybe I shouldn't be taking an Ativan every day. So I switched off on some days and took a couple Ibuprofen PMs to go to sleep. That was also a good idea, mostly. I would wake up with slightly less soreness, and having had a good night's sleep.
So that has been my protocol for sleeping the past five months or so -- Ativan or Ibuprofen PM. And it's been working just fine.
During surgery and chemo, I've also gotten used to taking a whole smorgasbord of pills prescribed for pain. Besides the usual go-to bottle of ibuprofen or acetaminophen, there's been an array of fancier stuff. After surgery, I became well acquainted with Percocet and its little brother Norco. Percocet works super well for me... and puts me in a lovely state in which all care wafts away and I find myself blissfully breathing oh so deeply, just floating on a pillow of pain free relaxation. It's almost too good, so I didn't take it all that often. It also has some side effects like constipation, and even though it is wonderful when in pain... when not in pain I find it nicer to be alert and coherent, even though it's harder to breathe fully and floating away is not quite as accessible. Or, well, possible.
Norco is pretty good for pain and I tend to take it when I need something good, but not too good. I also have the big granddaddy of all pain killers in my arsenal... Dilaudid... and while I have only had to resort to it once, it's nice to know it's there, like having an M16 in the closet just in case I need to get all NRA on somebody's ass in a pinch.
I actually don't overdo any of this, at all. If the bottle says one every six hours, I end up taking one every six days, if that. But the reliance on external aid becomes habitual. And since I've been part of the medical machine, I've just gotten used to altering my physical state with chemicals just to get through all this shit. But on Labor Day weekend, I figured hey, chemo is over, I'm on vacation, let's see what happens if I skip, say, the Ativan for one night.
So, I skipped it. First night: horrible nightmares. Woke myself and Roger up. Intense anxiety, creepy things, worlds crumbling. Well, I thought when I finally extricated myself from all of it and gratefully woke up, that was interesting. I must be... you know... somewhat less easy going with this whole cancer thing than maybe I've been letting on.
Good information.
The rest of the day was fine and I didn't get any headaches or need anything else to change my body chemistry, so we visited with friends and, while everyone else altered their chemistry with copious amounts of Knob Creek, I was very happy with water and food and feeling my own natural ebbs and flows.
That night, no Ativan: no bad dreams. I slept OK, as I usually do when with these friends. And so it went. I stopped taking everything at night, and then gradually I realized I had stopped taking anything during the day. If I had a headache, which happens frequently, I would just watch it for awhile. If it was not going to tip into a migraine, I wasn't going to medicate it. It ended up, all but once, moving through my body like a high pressure weather system, eventually resolving itself.
The week we were out of town, everything worked great. I felt pretty good, except for the ongoing fatigue of the chemo, which still hasn't fully gotten out of my system. And it was great to not have any other chemicals in my body. In my attempt to listen to my body, I figured that it was better to take the ear plugs out. If it hurts, or feels tired, having no extra chemicals enabled me to know that better. It was like removing the baffling from the walls, the pillows from over the head. If something was happening, I would be able to feel all its colors, and then decide from there how to deal with it.
It felt good. Feeling the clarity of my feelings (even when bad) felt like good information. I had a few headaches, but they resolved on their own in just about the same amount of time as when I'd pop a few motrin.
Coming home, however, has been a slightly different story. I have been working on this blog for awhile, waiting for a really great happy wrap up in which I can state, with wisdom and great modesty, that I have figured out how to waft through my life now with very out any help at all from any of my little friends in pill bottles.
HAH!
SO not the case. We came home to our only bathroom demolished (intentionally.... I decided to give myself a major remodeling project for my birthday). Our life now consists of moving back and forth from the office to the bathroom, carrying in our toothpaste, our shampoo, juggling where to hang our towels, invariably getting into the water and realizing we've forgotten the soap, etc. It has been challenging, for some of us more than others, and it's put the collective's teeth on edge.
Also, there have been quite a few stressors at work... deadlines/people/the very fact of having to work. I've been putting in more hours than usual and that's kind of kicked my ass. If that wasn't enough, we had a little meeting with our accountant last week to finally do our 2013 return, with results that were not as... um... good as we'd hoped. And all this is really bringing home the point that I'm not getting through the side effects of the chemo as quickly as (I feel) I should be. With some kind of stresses I'm fine, but with others I become crushed with fatigue, the energy violently abandoning my body as soon as the negative energy levels hit any kind of critical mass. I am suffering fools not gladly at all. And my sleep has been getting worse, and worse, and worse.
And meanwhile... my little experiment of listening to my body. Which, by the way, is pretty much constantly telling me some variation of FUCK YOU.
It's ironic. When I was going through the worst of the chemo, on days I didn't feel totally like a rotting, stinking carcass... I felt pretty good. Sure, my throat was sore and my bones hurt and my head hurt and I was so fatigued that I couldn't really walk from room to room without my heart pounding... but... hey! not feeling like a rotting, stinking carcass felt pretty damn fucking good! So, I'd walk around with a cheery countenance and two thumbs up saying, right on right on right on, I'm feeling fine.
Cut to: five weeks after chemo. My brain is telling me I need to pull up my big girl panties and be better already. It's high time to be fine and to be getting back on the bike and start training for that century. At the VERY least, it's high time to be able to get through the day without falling apart.
Wrong.
In my new experiment of listening to my body, I really want my body to be purring with gratitude that it's not being poisoned any more. Which it is, mostly. But bodies are fickle, like a dog. The punishment is over, now it wants to go out on a walk, run and play fetch, do the things it used to do. But... it can't. It's tired. It's very anxious. I'm starting to worry about the reconstructive surgery I'm having in six days. My brain is telling me that the new normal should be feeling great. But it isn't. Not all the time. What I'm hearing is my body now kind of whimpering, saying it's tired, and scared, and pissed off at all the people and things in the world that are impeding its ability to rest, and feel safe, and heal up in total peace.
One of whom is, well, me.
So this is what daily life without buffers is like, I'm finding out. It is loud. It is
annoying. It is a heavy weight on my shoulders. And there is nowhere to
hide if the outside world starts punching me out. If I start getting a
headache, well, then I'm getting a headache. I can't take a couple of
pills and soldier on, in my new experiment. I have to notice that I have
a headache. I have to pay attention to what's really happening. Somehow I
have to develop new strategies, rather than reaching for the pill
bottle. Rather than crouching into a fetal position and buffering
myself up with padding, I have to get all Jet Li on life's ass, and
learn how to fight back, or extricate myself gracefully from the
situation. Maybe fighting back is doing more yoga. Maybe fighting back
is telling more people they need to solve their own problems, or move to
a place where their problems don't become my problems. Maybe fighting
back is, literally, fighting back. I don't know. I've always put on the
shin guards and kevlar and hoped for the best.
I'm not so sure about this experiment any more, to tell you the truth. I've caved in twice, and have been happy for my decision both times. One day last week, with the temperatures soaring above 100, I hit a place where my energy was so drained I couldn't even move. I finally took a Fioricet, a great medication that usually works well to combat a migraine (as long as I don't take it too often, at which point it starts to cause a migraine). I made it through the day. And was happy about that.
But then, the daisy chain started up again. The pill contained caffeine, a substance I am pathetically sensitive to (the last time I had a small green tea in the morning, I was up until 1:40 am). This time was no different. I took the Fioricet and then could not sleep. Which meant I was exhausted the next day. And then I couldn't sleep the next night either. Which meant I wanted to reach for something to help me sleep. Which I ended up doing last night because I was going to start to cry if I didn't get a good night's sleep.
Insidious stuff. Once you stop listening, it's just so easy to keep not listening. And our lives these days are stressful and difficult, and it's built into our culture to not really feel that very acutely. And the culture gives us hundreds of ways to artificially make it through a day/week/month/year/lifetime at the pace that it kind of wants us to keep. I'm living within my own nervous system these days --- I don't drink, smoke, ingest caffeine, or even eat sugar any more. I
don't taking anything that pumps me up or calms me down -- and that's a very tough place to live for me within a normal working life. We are all encouraged to be little Judy Garlands, tweaking our systems to feel up, but not too up, and down, but not too down.
How to live within my own nervous system? How to engage in a work life and family life and creative life without external uppers, downers, relaxers, enhancers, or other types of buffers? Is it mandated that in order to live in this society, with its implied demands and conventions, I have to push and pull and tweak and ignore my body's basic messages? Boy, I hate that equation.
Is there a way to do this? I don't know. Maybe it's not possible to do this every day... maybe balance and harmony aren't possible during that short a time. But I need to figure this out enough so that I don't feel my heart constricting with fear that I'm literally killing myself every time I get stressed out at work, or angry at some person who just simply isn't getting what I'm trying to say.
I don't think I have an ending to this blog. I can't tell you I've figured this out. I took an Ativan last night and slept like gangbusters. And I'll probably do the same tonight.
And maybe, with that good night of sleep under my belt... maybe I'll figure out how to do all this better tomorrow.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Re: Union
There were 364 of us, the Blair High School class of 1974. We came of
age in the year that Richard Nixon was impeached, the Rubik's cube was
invented, and the first bar code was scanned. Stephen King published his
first novel, and Leonardo DiCapprio was born. The fall of Saigon was
less than a year away. And there were many people in the world who
actually had been to Woodstock.
Last night we had our 40th class reunion.
And as I try to untangle my complicated mix of emotions about it, I realize that the joy and depth I feel at seeing everyone again has absolutely nothing to do with high school whatsoever.
At one point last night, we were encouraged to come up to the mic to reminisce about any funny stories we may remember. I laughed. Funny? High school? My memories of high school were ones of noisy, unskilled desperation. I was rebellious, enraged, aching with an intolerable and incoherent desire for freedom. While everyone around me (seemingly) was happily enjoying their carefree days of youth, I embraced causes with a fierce passion -- from the local politics of enforced integration, to joining our local evangelical church group -- then fell from grace howling at the universe. I performed miniscule acts of defiance, smoking cigarettes on the park benches across from the school, running away to San Francisco. My only respite was when I put words on a page (with a typewriter, when I wanted to use advanced technology). I dropped out of my last semester and took my one remaining class at a continuation school. I don't believe either of my parents attended my graduation. I could not wait.... could not wait... to get out of town forever.
Out of our class of 364, I think I had a working acquaintance with maybe... six people. I was not in the popular crowd, I didn't "date," I lasted two days on the swim team (two days of panic, fear, and abject misery). I was a journalism geek who used my privileges to ditch school. I was the Senior Class Treasurer, winning with a write in campaign of maybe five votes. My happiest moments were in my history and English classes, and I used math to make sense of my world, working out trig proofs late at night while my mother divorced her husband and our house was foreclosed upon outside my bedroom door.
Funny moments? Not too many.
The breakthrough moment happened a few years ago at a reunion when I was talking to someone and heard what had really been going on with her during high school -- not good stuff, stuff that in many ways was worse than my own life. As we talked, I learned about some other stories, what was happening in other families. Alcoholism, abuse, alienation, pain. And I finally had a lightbulb moment: I wasn't the only one feeling pain back then! DUH! We were all suffering, and all so unskilled at dealing with it. It was not that everyone except me was fine and cool and happy on the surface. No! It was a world of surface smiles and underground turmoil. We were all in this together but separately, and had no power to escape, no idea how to work our way through our pain except to just blunder through it and get out the other side.
Last night I realized that most of my conversations were deliciously connected. It was an utter delight to see the friends I had known well, and to dive into our old quirky senses of humor and mutual shit-giving. It was also amazing to engage in conversation with people I didn't necessarily know in high school. We were now reminiscing about conversations and experiences we'd had in previous reunions, and not at all about Blair. These are new old friends, people I find I want to spend as much time as possible with, having known and not known them for so many decades.
And yet, it was more than that. Forty years ago, I felt that all these people were from a different planet from me. But we launched from the same space and time, were taught the same way to think by the same teachers, were caught in the same vortex and spun out into the world simultaneously. We are far more similar than different, most of us, and that is fascinating to me. Like family, we did not really have a choice in being thrown in with each other, and we weren't the tribe that most of us would be lucky enough to find in college, but we know the same people, we know each others' parents, we have a common database of images, sounds, and events to share and cross reference and grow from.
So last night was amazing. As with high school, I went in thinking I was the only one dealing with health issues. But as the evening progressed, I realized that -- once again -- we are all in more or less the same boat. We are now the caretakers of our parents (if they are still alive). We are now watching our children launch into their own new trajectories. We still exchange stories of drug taking (now anti-inflammatories and steroids). And we all now think of our mortality with a presence and perspective that we never used to have.
The moments together are precious. It's like, finally, we have figured out how to talk to each other on a level that matters. There was not a lot of strutting about this time, talking (however obliquely) about careers and money and outward success. The questions were about people: how many children, how are your parents, how are you. We talked about how we feel our lives are going, and about the lessons we are now learning that we wish we'd learned 25 years ago. Lessons, usually, about health, and simplicity, and cutting through the bullshit.
Forty years, and I feel like I'm just starting to scratch the surface with these people.
I treasure these new/old connections. They link me to a past that I've long ago forgiven but never really knew. I still don't remotely know all 363 of my other classmates, but I'm getting there. And the kids are all right. We have mostly made it through OK, and are talking about doing this again far sooner. The final graduation will come soon enough for all of us, and there is still time to enjoy our carefree days of youth.
Last night we had our 40th class reunion.
And as I try to untangle my complicated mix of emotions about it, I realize that the joy and depth I feel at seeing everyone again has absolutely nothing to do with high school whatsoever.
At one point last night, we were encouraged to come up to the mic to reminisce about any funny stories we may remember. I laughed. Funny? High school? My memories of high school were ones of noisy, unskilled desperation. I was rebellious, enraged, aching with an intolerable and incoherent desire for freedom. While everyone around me (seemingly) was happily enjoying their carefree days of youth, I embraced causes with a fierce passion -- from the local politics of enforced integration, to joining our local evangelical church group -- then fell from grace howling at the universe. I performed miniscule acts of defiance, smoking cigarettes on the park benches across from the school, running away to San Francisco. My only respite was when I put words on a page (with a typewriter, when I wanted to use advanced technology). I dropped out of my last semester and took my one remaining class at a continuation school. I don't believe either of my parents attended my graduation. I could not wait.... could not wait... to get out of town forever.
Out of our class of 364, I think I had a working acquaintance with maybe... six people. I was not in the popular crowd, I didn't "date," I lasted two days on the swim team (two days of panic, fear, and abject misery). I was a journalism geek who used my privileges to ditch school. I was the Senior Class Treasurer, winning with a write in campaign of maybe five votes. My happiest moments were in my history and English classes, and I used math to make sense of my world, working out trig proofs late at night while my mother divorced her husband and our house was foreclosed upon outside my bedroom door.
Funny moments? Not too many.
The breakthrough moment happened a few years ago at a reunion when I was talking to someone and heard what had really been going on with her during high school -- not good stuff, stuff that in many ways was worse than my own life. As we talked, I learned about some other stories, what was happening in other families. Alcoholism, abuse, alienation, pain. And I finally had a lightbulb moment: I wasn't the only one feeling pain back then! DUH! We were all suffering, and all so unskilled at dealing with it. It was not that everyone except me was fine and cool and happy on the surface. No! It was a world of surface smiles and underground turmoil. We were all in this together but separately, and had no power to escape, no idea how to work our way through our pain except to just blunder through it and get out the other side.
Last night I realized that most of my conversations were deliciously connected. It was an utter delight to see the friends I had known well, and to dive into our old quirky senses of humor and mutual shit-giving. It was also amazing to engage in conversation with people I didn't necessarily know in high school. We were now reminiscing about conversations and experiences we'd had in previous reunions, and not at all about Blair. These are new old friends, people I find I want to spend as much time as possible with, having known and not known them for so many decades.
And yet, it was more than that. Forty years ago, I felt that all these people were from a different planet from me. But we launched from the same space and time, were taught the same way to think by the same teachers, were caught in the same vortex and spun out into the world simultaneously. We are far more similar than different, most of us, and that is fascinating to me. Like family, we did not really have a choice in being thrown in with each other, and we weren't the tribe that most of us would be lucky enough to find in college, but we know the same people, we know each others' parents, we have a common database of images, sounds, and events to share and cross reference and grow from.
So last night was amazing. As with high school, I went in thinking I was the only one dealing with health issues. But as the evening progressed, I realized that -- once again -- we are all in more or less the same boat. We are now the caretakers of our parents (if they are still alive). We are now watching our children launch into their own new trajectories. We still exchange stories of drug taking (now anti-inflammatories and steroids). And we all now think of our mortality with a presence and perspective that we never used to have.
The moments together are precious. It's like, finally, we have figured out how to talk to each other on a level that matters. There was not a lot of strutting about this time, talking (however obliquely) about careers and money and outward success. The questions were about people: how many children, how are your parents, how are you. We talked about how we feel our lives are going, and about the lessons we are now learning that we wish we'd learned 25 years ago. Lessons, usually, about health, and simplicity, and cutting through the bullshit.
Forty years, and I feel like I'm just starting to scratch the surface with these people.
I treasure these new/old connections. They link me to a past that I've long ago forgiven but never really knew. I still don't remotely know all 363 of my other classmates, but I'm getting there. And the kids are all right. We have mostly made it through OK, and are talking about doing this again far sooner. The final graduation will come soon enough for all of us, and there is still time to enjoy our carefree days of youth.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
How I Spent My Summer Vacation - Part III: The Frogs' Epilogue
A few days later, from the balcony of our lodge overlooking the marshlands of Bodega Bay, we asked ourselves: if we had known that the train would arrive a full seven hours late, would we have toughed it out? Were we just old softies who couldn't wait more than three hours to fulfill a commitment and have an adventure in the process? When I had to write the email to the opera company telling them that I wasn't going to make it, the words sounded pretty lame: we couldn't wait any longer. It sounded really wimpy and lightweight when stated that way. Or was it the uncertainty that made us bail at 3 a.m.? Was it possible that, if someone had had a crystal ball and had said "Train 14 to Seattle will be arriving at 7 a.m." that we could have figured out a way to make it work?
I think we could have. Even though it would have been impossible in reality for anyone to know when it would have arrived... I do think that knowing what we were up against would have made the whole situation a lot more manageable. I could have put down the phone and stopped obsessively checking the status app. We could have made ourselves a bit more comfortable in the truck and actually gotten several hours of sleep, maybe. We could even conceivably have rented a cheap hotel room nearby and gotten a few hours in a real bed. It would still have taken a toll, for sure, and my poor toxin-ridden body would certainly have been massively uncomfortable... but I think we would have figured out a way to do it.
And there was the dream. Boy, we wanted that train trip so badly we could taste it. We really were very attached to the whole idea of a train ride and had been fantasizing about it for months. Giving up on that possibility felt like losing out on a trip to Disneyland when you're eight. Or having your parents say you could not get that puppy you had been holding every day after school at the pet store. The slap in the face of reality was brutal. You mean... we looked at each other... after all this...we might not get to even ride on the train?
On the other hand, it could not be disputed that the dream was turning a bit towards the nightmare. Looking forward into the new version of the dream, we would get on the train after 5 a.m., sleep for ... how long?... in the neato roommette. But then it'd be daylight. And breakfast would be served between certain hours... and so we'd drag ourselves to breakfast and sit and look at all the other bleary passengers, some of whom had actually been on the train when the accident happened. What would we talk about? Would the mood be one of carefree abandon? Uh... probably not, actually. My guess is that the mood would be grim, irritable, or (at best) just totally leaden with fatigue. The number of hours we left late would also indicate the number of hours we'd get in late, and the following day would be also spent playing catch up. So...even though I'd like to make the case that we were both fairly evolved in paying attention to the present moment sensory reality we were experiencing and honoring it... I have to admit that we were both pretty convinced by this point that our future moment sensory reality (should we continue with the train plan) was going to suck bigtime too.
Bailing meant saying good-bye to all of it, the good and the bad. Bailing meant letting people down. And feeling weak and somewhat stupid... both for thinking up this dumb idea in the first place, and then giving up before knowing exactly how horrible our life could get.
In the end, I think it was the not knowing that made it impossible to continue. It was the extreme fatigue, at 3 a.m, and the knowledge that we would have at least two more hours to go...and even that looking doubtful. As Roger said, we were like frogs being slowly boiled to death. If we had known the true situation, we could have either accepted our fate, or jumped out of the pot sooner.
Like most frogs, we were extraordinarily glad we jumped. When I looked at the app the following day and saw that we would have been sitting at the station until 7 a.m, we both heaved a huge sigh of disbelief and relief. Can you imagine, we said. Another four hours of that? Unreal.
We got our money, we ended up having an incredibly lovely time wandering around Sacramento for a day and then driving through the wine country and staying a couple of nights at the Bodega Bay Lodge... but stories about other people being relaxed and happy and eating scrumptious meals are just not as compelling as zombie apocalypses, so I'll spare you.
I have two points to make:
One. As a great Vulcan philosopher once said: "After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." We wanted the train ride badly, so badly that the wanting overrode all possible logic (up to a point). The wanting was almost definitely going to be more pleasing than the having, once (or if) it ever arrived. At a certain point (about 3 a.m., to be exact) we were forced to pay attention to that fact.
Two. Once we started to detach from that wanting, a whole world of possibilities opened up to us. We were suddenly free and easy and far more relaxed. Somehow we had to just let go and see the situation for what it was (i.e., totally fucked) and then make a decision based on that, rather than based on a whirlwind of conjecture, fear, need to live up to other people's expectations, etc.
And yes, it's highly possible that a year ago, pre-diagnosis, I would have toughed it out. And it may have worked out fine. But we were glad we didn't tough it out one more minute. We were pushing the river, as the saying goes. We were pushing to make something work that really didn't want to work. And the second we gave up and acknowledged that we just couldn't do it any more... it gave way and softened for us. We became the owners of our lives again. Possibilities again became endless.
When things started pushing back at us, it turned out it was for a reason. Maybe we weren't meant to go up to Seattle after all. Maybe we were meant to shut up and relax for awhile. In a place where there was beauty, and nature, and not much else to do.
I have stop for a moment and acknowledge that man. The man that night, who decided to do something that probably broke the hearts of everyone who knew him. He stopped a train full of 200 people. Those people waited in the train, with far less freedom than we had up in Sacramento, for seven hours. The people meeting them waited. They friends and family waited. And all along the tracks going north, people in stations waited. And that waiting caused their friends and family to wait. People met each other during that wait, and fell in love. People fought during that wait, and fell out of love. A ripple spread through hundreds, or thousands of people, as we were all directly affected by this one tragic decision of this one deeply conflicted man. And because of that ripple, all our lives were changed.
I think we could have. Even though it would have been impossible in reality for anyone to know when it would have arrived... I do think that knowing what we were up against would have made the whole situation a lot more manageable. I could have put down the phone and stopped obsessively checking the status app. We could have made ourselves a bit more comfortable in the truck and actually gotten several hours of sleep, maybe. We could even conceivably have rented a cheap hotel room nearby and gotten a few hours in a real bed. It would still have taken a toll, for sure, and my poor toxin-ridden body would certainly have been massively uncomfortable... but I think we would have figured out a way to do it.
And there was the dream. Boy, we wanted that train trip so badly we could taste it. We really were very attached to the whole idea of a train ride and had been fantasizing about it for months. Giving up on that possibility felt like losing out on a trip to Disneyland when you're eight. Or having your parents say you could not get that puppy you had been holding every day after school at the pet store. The slap in the face of reality was brutal. You mean... we looked at each other... after all this...we might not get to even ride on the train?
On the other hand, it could not be disputed that the dream was turning a bit towards the nightmare. Looking forward into the new version of the dream, we would get on the train after 5 a.m., sleep for ... how long?... in the neato roommette. But then it'd be daylight. And breakfast would be served between certain hours... and so we'd drag ourselves to breakfast and sit and look at all the other bleary passengers, some of whom had actually been on the train when the accident happened. What would we talk about? Would the mood be one of carefree abandon? Uh... probably not, actually. My guess is that the mood would be grim, irritable, or (at best) just totally leaden with fatigue. The number of hours we left late would also indicate the number of hours we'd get in late, and the following day would be also spent playing catch up. So...even though I'd like to make the case that we were both fairly evolved in paying attention to the present moment sensory reality we were experiencing and honoring it... I have to admit that we were both pretty convinced by this point that our future moment sensory reality (should we continue with the train plan) was going to suck bigtime too.
Bailing meant saying good-bye to all of it, the good and the bad. Bailing meant letting people down. And feeling weak and somewhat stupid... both for thinking up this dumb idea in the first place, and then giving up before knowing exactly how horrible our life could get.
In the end, I think it was the not knowing that made it impossible to continue. It was the extreme fatigue, at 3 a.m, and the knowledge that we would have at least two more hours to go...and even that looking doubtful. As Roger said, we were like frogs being slowly boiled to death. If we had known the true situation, we could have either accepted our fate, or jumped out of the pot sooner.
Like most frogs, we were extraordinarily glad we jumped. When I looked at the app the following day and saw that we would have been sitting at the station until 7 a.m, we both heaved a huge sigh of disbelief and relief. Can you imagine, we said. Another four hours of that? Unreal.
We got our money, we ended up having an incredibly lovely time wandering around Sacramento for a day and then driving through the wine country and staying a couple of nights at the Bodega Bay Lodge... but stories about other people being relaxed and happy and eating scrumptious meals are just not as compelling as zombie apocalypses, so I'll spare you.
I have two points to make:
One. As a great Vulcan philosopher once said: "After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." We wanted the train ride badly, so badly that the wanting overrode all possible logic (up to a point). The wanting was almost definitely going to be more pleasing than the having, once (or if) it ever arrived. At a certain point (about 3 a.m., to be exact) we were forced to pay attention to that fact.
Two. Once we started to detach from that wanting, a whole world of possibilities opened up to us. We were suddenly free and easy and far more relaxed. Somehow we had to just let go and see the situation for what it was (i.e., totally fucked) and then make a decision based on that, rather than based on a whirlwind of conjecture, fear, need to live up to other people's expectations, etc.
And yes, it's highly possible that a year ago, pre-diagnosis, I would have toughed it out. And it may have worked out fine. But we were glad we didn't tough it out one more minute. We were pushing the river, as the saying goes. We were pushing to make something work that really didn't want to work. And the second we gave up and acknowledged that we just couldn't do it any more... it gave way and softened for us. We became the owners of our lives again. Possibilities again became endless.
When things started pushing back at us, it turned out it was for a reason. Maybe we weren't meant to go up to Seattle after all. Maybe we were meant to shut up and relax for awhile. In a place where there was beauty, and nature, and not much else to do.
I have stop for a moment and acknowledge that man. The man that night, who decided to do something that probably broke the hearts of everyone who knew him. He stopped a train full of 200 people. Those people waited in the train, with far less freedom than we had up in Sacramento, for seven hours. The people meeting them waited. They friends and family waited. And all along the tracks going north, people in stations waited. And that waiting caused their friends and family to wait. People met each other during that wait, and fell in love. People fought during that wait, and fell out of love. A ripple spread through hundreds, or thousands of people, as we were all directly affected by this one tragic decision of this one deeply conflicted man. And because of that ripple, all our lives were changed.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
How I Spent My Summer Vacaton: Part II - God Laughs
Best. Plan. Ever.
Right?
So we do the first part, and it goes flawlessly. Visit our friends over Labor Day, eat freshly picked food, laugh, reconnect, drive down to Sacramento, have a lovely dinner with some other dear friends... then off to the train station to await our train!
Very excited were we. We parked in the parking lot, paid fifty bucks for five days in advance, and unloaded our suitcases, our yoga mats, and our backpacks from the back of the truck. (I forgot to mention, we were also going to have plenty of time for yoga.) We locked up and went into the train station, trying to avoid eye contact from the several street people loitering in front of the building.
This was an omen of what was to come.
We were a couple of hours early. No big deal, except that the train station was, as it turns out, not air conditioned. And it was Sacramento on Labor Day, which means about 90 degrees outside and about 80 inside. No problem, we were going to be on the train in a few hours and everything would be fine.
We check the board: departure time was supposed to be 11:59 PM, and it showed a delay of maybe ten minutes. No problem. Didn't even register.
We walk around the train station a little bit, looking at the cool old benches (those double sided ones that look kind of like Scrabble tile holders, but with people sitting on both sides... the middle having vents for heating in the cold winter months... so cool... so old fashioned.) Unfortunately, we could not see the ceiling as the entire floor of the station was covered by scaffolding, to retrofit everything from about 10 feet above our heads and upwards. So there was a slightly dystopian air to the whole thing... padded scaffolding legs in the middle of aisles, windows boarded up, plastic sheeting swaying in the breeze from the sole oscillating fan standing in the corner. But it was charming, right? And we were only going to be there for two short hours, so we could bask in the ambiance.
There were relatively few passengers in the terminal. Several were obviously crazy, or homeless, or both. These people wandered in and out, taking to themselves or soliciting money. Kind of made us uncomfortable, but we basked in our soon-to-be status of First Class Passengers and tried to extend compassion outward into the world (while still studiously avoiding eye contact.)
In an effort to start killing the two hours until our midnight departure, I went to a kiosk and picked up a couple of copies of all the train schedules they had. We could start fantasizing about our next train trip while we wait. Roger found a fully bound Amtrak book with all the routes marked and described, sleeping compartments diagrammed, and the other bonus programs highlighted (on some routes there are park rangers or historians that go through the train providing a live travelogue for the places you are traveling through). Train travel was looking better and better to us. Using our fingers we plotted out routes to New Orleans, New York, Chicago, Kansas City, Vancouver. All without getting on an airplane! All with the graciousness and ease of stepping on a train.
Time passed. People started trickling in. A pleasant middle aged woman, sharply dressed and looking chipper, was dropped off by a man who looked to be her son. A dazed girl pushing a huge suitcase was followed by two dazed parents, wheeling in another 150 pounds of luggage, apparently all setting out to get her installed in college. A bleached blond sat down, kinked her bare legs over her backpack on the bench, and looked around at the world as if wondering who would buy her a drink next. A young man of indeterminate ethnicity wandered in and sat down, lost in his earbuds, thumbs moving on his cell phone.
As we waited, I glanced up at the departure time every so often. And, every time I did, we were delayed by a little bit more. But there was no rhyme or reason, that I could tell. At 10:30, the departure time was about 12:16. At 10:45, the departure time was about 12:22. For awhile that was fine. Things happen. Part of the charm of this old fashioned mode of transportation. However, after it edged to a departure time of about 1:15, we started to get a little worried. This was a trend going in the wrong direction: 1:15 was a long way away.
I started getting texts from Amtrak stating updated departure times. This was interesting, especially as the times stated in the texts did not seem to jive with the times on the board. I then started checking the Amtrak application on my phone... a slick little app, actually, that gives you the status of trains by station. The app gave us a slightly different time altogether.
We were getting concerned. And we were tired. Roger had helped our friends pick vegetables in the fields all morning, and I was still really trashed from the chemo. (In the master plan, I would be feeling fine... it being, like, ten days after the last treatment and all. In reality... I was headachy and hot, the station was starting to get on my nerves, and a wickedly deep exhaustion was starting to set in.) More passengers were now crowded into the terminal. Women with small children looked like they were already about to lose their minds. An older woman in a neck brace wheeled in pile of lumpy, disjointed bags and luggage.
Roger persuaded me to try to lie down and get some rest on the bench. Having checked the board and my Amtrak app one last time, I managed to sleep for about 4 minutes. Then the wafting cigarette smoke outside and the worry that something would appear to change the story in one of my information streams woke me up.
We decided to decamp to the truck. For some reason, I stubbornly wanted to stay in the station, with some weird fear that something interesting would happen in the station that I wouldn't know about instantly by using my phone. But, it was hot. The single oscillating fan in the corner of the huge station was not doing the trick. And Roger didn't want to lie down on the bench like I was, assuming (with a fair amount of logic) that when we both woke up we'd be stripped to the skivvies, all our possessions gone, and our heads on a stack of Amtrak timetables. (I was nervous just going into the bathroom alone after one encounter in there with a woman who was standing by the sinks, lifting up her shirt and staring down at her flat belly. We were the only ones in there and as I peed I wondered... is she pregnant? Is an alien going to burst out at any moment? What is going on here?)
So we moved to the truck. Pushed the front seats back and used our pillows for comfort. Much better. Roger set his alarm for 12:30 and was able to start dozing but I became distracted by the drama going on in the car beside me. There were two people in there, like a woman and her grown son, both sucking massively and obsessively on cigarettes. (Don't get me started on cigarettes and the tobacco industry.) He was on his cell phone, talking to his girlfriend I assumed, from snippets I caught. He would periodically get out of the car and walk around, and I noticed his arm was in a cast. I watched them like I'd watch a dream--exhausted, leaden, and unable to wake up.
There was a lot of activity in the parking lot, a commingling of homeless/crazy people with sleep-deprived/going-crazy waiting passengers. It was like Sacramento was really coming alive now that the clock had passed midnight.
On a whim I decided to do a search on something like "Amtrak delays" and found that there is an entire website devoted to Amtrak delays. Not a good sign. I opened it up and... scrolling through the various tweets (all ending with some variation of #AmtrakFail), I see something that perks me up and makes my stomach drop at the same time.
Fatal accident in Oakland, northbound Coast Starlight train #14. Train still being held at the scene.
WTF?
W?
T?
F?
Sure enough. I googled several sources. There had been a fatal accident. Some guy had run his car underneath the train and it ground to halt six blocks later. Preliminary news stories indicated a probable suicide. Whoa... this suddenly did not sound easy, or short, or ... you know... fun or romantic any more. We were waiting for a train that had just killed someone.
Bad.
Bad bad bad.
I told Roger the news, then got out of the truck and went back inside the station. The homeless and crazy people had become emboldened. They were starting to openly solicit, and the muttering seemed to be louder, coming from multiple people at once.
The woman at the desk was absolutely willing to talk about the situation, but couldn't give me any definitive news about when it would actually arrive. No, it had not yet moved from Oakland. Once it moved, it would be here in two hours. No, there was no way of estimating when it would be able to move. We were all stuck in the uncertainty.
I went back and updated Roger. The earliest it could get there at this point was well past 2 a.m., and there was absolutely no way of knowing if that was remotely accurate. Roger intoned that we'd be waiting there until the sun came up. I said I thought that was overly dire, but of course I didn't know anything either. We weren't getting along particularly well at this point, to tell you the truth. I felt tired to the point of nausea, Roger was exhausted, and there was nothing for us to do but sit there, and wait.
At this point, I became somewhat autistic. Having only the internet and my phone apps as a source of reference, I started absolutely obsessively checking the Amtrak app and scanning for more news. Periodically, I'd go back inside the station (now crowded with the undead) and check the board to see what its version of reality would be.
As I went deep into the dharma of the railroad timetable, I started cross referencing the published schedules against the Amtrak app to try to distinguish the difference between the reality (of the app and the station times) and estimation (of the timetable), between theory and practice. I noticed that every station has its arrival and departure time listed as the same minute (which is beautifully condensed and elegant technical writing, but of course can never match with reality.) This meant every departure was at least two minutes later than estimated, two minutes that they would gain (in theory) while traveling to the next station.
I also realized that it was totally futile to keep looking at the estimated time of arrival in Sacramento as the farther away you got from the actual stopped train, the more extrapolated and mushy the numbers would be. Instead, I had to find the last station that had hard dates and times (as opposed to estimates) and then move one station further up the line, to the station that had the next estimated dates and times. That station (which happened to be Jack London in Oakland) would be the station where the train was stuck. As soon as those times turned from estimates to actuals, our train would be on its way.
So I checked that status, oh, about every ten seconds. At about 1 a.m. we started looking at other options. What if got a refund and flew to Seattle? I looked at all the flights available at such short notice and there was nothing good. The flights would cost about $900 total (which would have been covered by the refund from the train tickets), but somehow $900 for plane tickets routed through Denver and Phoenix and leaving at 6:15 in the morning was just not nearly as enticing as the train travel we had envisioned. Plus, I'm very reluctant to fly yet because of the possibility of my arm swelling up with lymphedema. After looking at the prices and the schedules and considering the possibility of causing a lymphatic fluid event... we just couldn't do it. We thought about driving 16 hours each way... and just couldn't do that either. It was either give up Seattle and the conference altogether, or tough it out. And our ability to think coherently was diminishing with every passing second.
Then we had another thought. If this train was three or four hours late departing Sacramento, then it would be three or four hours late arriving in Seattle, right? Which means we would arrive sometime after midnight the next night, the amount of time past midnight as unknowable as the amount of time that we still had to wait, which would mean we'd spend a good deal of our day off trying to recover from getting there. The options were getting less and less clear and more and more unpleasant.
At around 2:00 am we gave up being in the truck and relocated back into the station. By this time the full zombie apocalypse was under way. The kids were screaming or (worse) just staring into space and keening. The nicely dressed woman who had been dropped off by her son had a brow furrowed with pain as she sat by her nice luggage and periodically rubbed her hand through her hair. There was very little distinction any more between who was a passenger and who was local. Everyone by this time was homeless; everyone by this time was crazy.
We asked the guy behind the counter what the situation was. He didn't know a lot more than we did, but he said he'd make some calls. A few minutes later he called my name on the loudspeaker to get us to come back to the window. They were just now starting to take the car out from under the train. He estimated that would take 30 - 40 minutes. He also said that it would take two hours to get from Oakland to Sacramento. So, conceivably, we could be on our way as early as 4:45. That would be the optimistic scenario.
We said we'd check back and went outside to the back platform where it was a bit cooler and there was a breeze. The woman in the neck brace was sitting on a bench with her lumpy bags and baggage, talking to herself. The Amtrak employee we'd just talked to was now sitting on a luggage moving cart, smoking a cigarette... biding his time like the rest of us. We found an empty bench and looked at the back yard of the train depot: the empty platforms, the promises of journeys yet to come. We felt nothing any more. Except maybe a deep desire to never hear another Johnny Cash song ever again.
I finally said the words. If it goes past 5 a.m., we're going to scrub the mission. We were both sorely disappointed on many levels and it was inconceivable to me that I would miss the conference that I had worked to hard to prepare for. But the show might have to go on without me. It was possible that I had found, finally, one of my absolute limits.
We went back inside and checked the board: 4:45.
I checked my app about fifty times.
I checked the board again:5:02.
Five in the morning. We were now looking at two more hours of doing this, at the absolute minimum. It was like falling in love with someone you were sure you'd spend the rest of your life with, and then fighting all the time over really stupid stuff. Or really big stuff. But after awhile, after all the soul grinding, plodding through, agonizingly painful moments with this person, it just becomes finally oh so clear: it's over. You just can't do it any more. And the worst part of all of it is the losing of the dream.
All the fantasies we had conjured up had to be dismantled. There would be no more harmonicas wailing the blues, no more gracious porters, no more observation car reveries. We would not see the Puget Sound glittering in the sunlight from the deck of a ferry boat. I would not charm the dozens of presenters into booking Gilbert and Sullivan into their well-funded theatres. I would not have great train stories to tell my co-workers (at least no stories that involved actually being on a train.) We would not see a train; would not smell that creosote smell of the ties; would not look out on the world through a hypnotically moving window.
It was clear, absolutely clear, that we were done.
Right?
So we do the first part, and it goes flawlessly. Visit our friends over Labor Day, eat freshly picked food, laugh, reconnect, drive down to Sacramento, have a lovely dinner with some other dear friends... then off to the train station to await our train!
Very excited were we. We parked in the parking lot, paid fifty bucks for five days in advance, and unloaded our suitcases, our yoga mats, and our backpacks from the back of the truck. (I forgot to mention, we were also going to have plenty of time for yoga.) We locked up and went into the train station, trying to avoid eye contact from the several street people loitering in front of the building.
This was an omen of what was to come.
We were a couple of hours early. No big deal, except that the train station was, as it turns out, not air conditioned. And it was Sacramento on Labor Day, which means about 90 degrees outside and about 80 inside. No problem, we were going to be on the train in a few hours and everything would be fine.
We check the board: departure time was supposed to be 11:59 PM, and it showed a delay of maybe ten minutes. No problem. Didn't even register.
We walk around the train station a little bit, looking at the cool old benches (those double sided ones that look kind of like Scrabble tile holders, but with people sitting on both sides... the middle having vents for heating in the cold winter months... so cool... so old fashioned.) Unfortunately, we could not see the ceiling as the entire floor of the station was covered by scaffolding, to retrofit everything from about 10 feet above our heads and upwards. So there was a slightly dystopian air to the whole thing... padded scaffolding legs in the middle of aisles, windows boarded up, plastic sheeting swaying in the breeze from the sole oscillating fan standing in the corner. But it was charming, right? And we were only going to be there for two short hours, so we could bask in the ambiance.
There were relatively few passengers in the terminal. Several were obviously crazy, or homeless, or both. These people wandered in and out, taking to themselves or soliciting money. Kind of made us uncomfortable, but we basked in our soon-to-be status of First Class Passengers and tried to extend compassion outward into the world (while still studiously avoiding eye contact.)
In an effort to start killing the two hours until our midnight departure, I went to a kiosk and picked up a couple of copies of all the train schedules they had. We could start fantasizing about our next train trip while we wait. Roger found a fully bound Amtrak book with all the routes marked and described, sleeping compartments diagrammed, and the other bonus programs highlighted (on some routes there are park rangers or historians that go through the train providing a live travelogue for the places you are traveling through). Train travel was looking better and better to us. Using our fingers we plotted out routes to New Orleans, New York, Chicago, Kansas City, Vancouver. All without getting on an airplane! All with the graciousness and ease of stepping on a train.
Time passed. People started trickling in. A pleasant middle aged woman, sharply dressed and looking chipper, was dropped off by a man who looked to be her son. A dazed girl pushing a huge suitcase was followed by two dazed parents, wheeling in another 150 pounds of luggage, apparently all setting out to get her installed in college. A bleached blond sat down, kinked her bare legs over her backpack on the bench, and looked around at the world as if wondering who would buy her a drink next. A young man of indeterminate ethnicity wandered in and sat down, lost in his earbuds, thumbs moving on his cell phone.
As we waited, I glanced up at the departure time every so often. And, every time I did, we were delayed by a little bit more. But there was no rhyme or reason, that I could tell. At 10:30, the departure time was about 12:16. At 10:45, the departure time was about 12:22. For awhile that was fine. Things happen. Part of the charm of this old fashioned mode of transportation. However, after it edged to a departure time of about 1:15, we started to get a little worried. This was a trend going in the wrong direction: 1:15 was a long way away.
I started getting texts from Amtrak stating updated departure times. This was interesting, especially as the times stated in the texts did not seem to jive with the times on the board. I then started checking the Amtrak application on my phone... a slick little app, actually, that gives you the status of trains by station. The app gave us a slightly different time altogether.
We were getting concerned. And we were tired. Roger had helped our friends pick vegetables in the fields all morning, and I was still really trashed from the chemo. (In the master plan, I would be feeling fine... it being, like, ten days after the last treatment and all. In reality... I was headachy and hot, the station was starting to get on my nerves, and a wickedly deep exhaustion was starting to set in.) More passengers were now crowded into the terminal. Women with small children looked like they were already about to lose their minds. An older woman in a neck brace wheeled in pile of lumpy, disjointed bags and luggage.
Roger persuaded me to try to lie down and get some rest on the bench. Having checked the board and my Amtrak app one last time, I managed to sleep for about 4 minutes. Then the wafting cigarette smoke outside and the worry that something would appear to change the story in one of my information streams woke me up.
We decided to decamp to the truck. For some reason, I stubbornly wanted to stay in the station, with some weird fear that something interesting would happen in the station that I wouldn't know about instantly by using my phone. But, it was hot. The single oscillating fan in the corner of the huge station was not doing the trick. And Roger didn't want to lie down on the bench like I was, assuming (with a fair amount of logic) that when we both woke up we'd be stripped to the skivvies, all our possessions gone, and our heads on a stack of Amtrak timetables. (I was nervous just going into the bathroom alone after one encounter in there with a woman who was standing by the sinks, lifting up her shirt and staring down at her flat belly. We were the only ones in there and as I peed I wondered... is she pregnant? Is an alien going to burst out at any moment? What is going on here?)
So we moved to the truck. Pushed the front seats back and used our pillows for comfort. Much better. Roger set his alarm for 12:30 and was able to start dozing but I became distracted by the drama going on in the car beside me. There were two people in there, like a woman and her grown son, both sucking massively and obsessively on cigarettes. (Don't get me started on cigarettes and the tobacco industry.) He was on his cell phone, talking to his girlfriend I assumed, from snippets I caught. He would periodically get out of the car and walk around, and I noticed his arm was in a cast. I watched them like I'd watch a dream--exhausted, leaden, and unable to wake up.
There was a lot of activity in the parking lot, a commingling of homeless/crazy people with sleep-deprived/going-crazy waiting passengers. It was like Sacramento was really coming alive now that the clock had passed midnight.
On a whim I decided to do a search on something like "Amtrak delays" and found that there is an entire website devoted to Amtrak delays. Not a good sign. I opened it up and... scrolling through the various tweets (all ending with some variation of #AmtrakFail), I see something that perks me up and makes my stomach drop at the same time.
Fatal accident in Oakland, northbound Coast Starlight train #14. Train still being held at the scene.
WTF?
W?
T?
F?
Sure enough. I googled several sources. There had been a fatal accident. Some guy had run his car underneath the train and it ground to halt six blocks later. Preliminary news stories indicated a probable suicide. Whoa... this suddenly did not sound easy, or short, or ... you know... fun or romantic any more. We were waiting for a train that had just killed someone.
Bad.
Bad bad bad.
I told Roger the news, then got out of the truck and went back inside the station. The homeless and crazy people had become emboldened. They were starting to openly solicit, and the muttering seemed to be louder, coming from multiple people at once.
The woman at the desk was absolutely willing to talk about the situation, but couldn't give me any definitive news about when it would actually arrive. No, it had not yet moved from Oakland. Once it moved, it would be here in two hours. No, there was no way of estimating when it would be able to move. We were all stuck in the uncertainty.
I went back and updated Roger. The earliest it could get there at this point was well past 2 a.m., and there was absolutely no way of knowing if that was remotely accurate. Roger intoned that we'd be waiting there until the sun came up. I said I thought that was overly dire, but of course I didn't know anything either. We weren't getting along particularly well at this point, to tell you the truth. I felt tired to the point of nausea, Roger was exhausted, and there was nothing for us to do but sit there, and wait.
At this point, I became somewhat autistic. Having only the internet and my phone apps as a source of reference, I started absolutely obsessively checking the Amtrak app and scanning for more news. Periodically, I'd go back inside the station (now crowded with the undead) and check the board to see what its version of reality would be.
As I went deep into the dharma of the railroad timetable, I started cross referencing the published schedules against the Amtrak app to try to distinguish the difference between the reality (of the app and the station times) and estimation (of the timetable), between theory and practice. I noticed that every station has its arrival and departure time listed as the same minute (which is beautifully condensed and elegant technical writing, but of course can never match with reality.) This meant every departure was at least two minutes later than estimated, two minutes that they would gain (in theory) while traveling to the next station.
I also realized that it was totally futile to keep looking at the estimated time of arrival in Sacramento as the farther away you got from the actual stopped train, the more extrapolated and mushy the numbers would be. Instead, I had to find the last station that had hard dates and times (as opposed to estimates) and then move one station further up the line, to the station that had the next estimated dates and times. That station (which happened to be Jack London in Oakland) would be the station where the train was stuck. As soon as those times turned from estimates to actuals, our train would be on its way.
So I checked that status, oh, about every ten seconds. At about 1 a.m. we started looking at other options. What if got a refund and flew to Seattle? I looked at all the flights available at such short notice and there was nothing good. The flights would cost about $900 total (which would have been covered by the refund from the train tickets), but somehow $900 for plane tickets routed through Denver and Phoenix and leaving at 6:15 in the morning was just not nearly as enticing as the train travel we had envisioned. Plus, I'm very reluctant to fly yet because of the possibility of my arm swelling up with lymphedema. After looking at the prices and the schedules and considering the possibility of causing a lymphatic fluid event... we just couldn't do it. We thought about driving 16 hours each way... and just couldn't do that either. It was either give up Seattle and the conference altogether, or tough it out. And our ability to think coherently was diminishing with every passing second.
Then we had another thought. If this train was three or four hours late departing Sacramento, then it would be three or four hours late arriving in Seattle, right? Which means we would arrive sometime after midnight the next night, the amount of time past midnight as unknowable as the amount of time that we still had to wait, which would mean we'd spend a good deal of our day off trying to recover from getting there. The options were getting less and less clear and more and more unpleasant.
At around 2:00 am we gave up being in the truck and relocated back into the station. By this time the full zombie apocalypse was under way. The kids were screaming or (worse) just staring into space and keening. The nicely dressed woman who had been dropped off by her son had a brow furrowed with pain as she sat by her nice luggage and periodically rubbed her hand through her hair. There was very little distinction any more between who was a passenger and who was local. Everyone by this time was homeless; everyone by this time was crazy.
We asked the guy behind the counter what the situation was. He didn't know a lot more than we did, but he said he'd make some calls. A few minutes later he called my name on the loudspeaker to get us to come back to the window. They were just now starting to take the car out from under the train. He estimated that would take 30 - 40 minutes. He also said that it would take two hours to get from Oakland to Sacramento. So, conceivably, we could be on our way as early as 4:45. That would be the optimistic scenario.
We said we'd check back and went outside to the back platform where it was a bit cooler and there was a breeze. The woman in the neck brace was sitting on a bench with her lumpy bags and baggage, talking to herself. The Amtrak employee we'd just talked to was now sitting on a luggage moving cart, smoking a cigarette... biding his time like the rest of us. We found an empty bench and looked at the back yard of the train depot: the empty platforms, the promises of journeys yet to come. We felt nothing any more. Except maybe a deep desire to never hear another Johnny Cash song ever again.
I finally said the words. If it goes past 5 a.m., we're going to scrub the mission. We were both sorely disappointed on many levels and it was inconceivable to me that I would miss the conference that I had worked to hard to prepare for. But the show might have to go on without me. It was possible that I had found, finally, one of my absolute limits.
We went back inside and checked the board: 4:45.
I checked my app about fifty times.
I checked the board again:5:02.
Five in the morning. We were now looking at two more hours of doing this, at the absolute minimum. It was like falling in love with someone you were sure you'd spend the rest of your life with, and then fighting all the time over really stupid stuff. Or really big stuff. But after awhile, after all the soul grinding, plodding through, agonizingly painful moments with this person, it just becomes finally oh so clear: it's over. You just can't do it any more. And the worst part of all of it is the losing of the dream.
All the fantasies we had conjured up had to be dismantled. There would be no more harmonicas wailing the blues, no more gracious porters, no more observation car reveries. We would not see the Puget Sound glittering in the sunlight from the deck of a ferry boat. I would not charm the dozens of presenters into booking Gilbert and Sullivan into their well-funded theatres. I would not have great train stories to tell my co-workers (at least no stories that involved actually being on a train.) We would not see a train; would not smell that creosote smell of the ties; would not look out on the world through a hypnotically moving window.
It was clear, absolutely clear, that we were done.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
What I Did on My Summer Vacation: Part I - The Plan
You want to hear God laugh? Tell him your plans.
We had a great plan for our vacation, Roger and I did. It was beautiful, it was elegant, it was streamlined, it was relaxing. It incorporated business with pleasure (and thus was somewhat deductible.) It gave me the ability to help out the opera company by being at a very important conference up in Seattle for one day. It gave us the chance to do something romantic, and fun, and relaxing, and cool. It was a great plan.
Here's how this great plan went:
For Labor Day weekend, we would drive up to our friends' farm in Paradise and spend the weekend with them, laughing, and eating fresh vegetables, and playing music. We do this periodically and it's a shot in the arm for the soul, just so fun and relaxing and connected.
Monday, we would drive down to Sacramento. We would meet with friends for dinner and then, at midnight, we would get on the Amtrak Coast Starlight, be greeted by a gracious porter, led to our turned-down roomette, and sleep on the train until waking up in Oregon in the morning. Fully rested, we would go to the observation car (for first class passengers only, which of course we were), eat a delicious hot breakfast (for free because we were first class passengers, or did I mention that already?), and then watch the beauty of the world go by. The day would go by and we would explore the train, eat the (free) meals, feel the rhythmic clickety-clack of the train on the rails, and generally indulge in the romance and ease of train travel. Maybe Roger would play poker and drink bourbon with some Cary Grant types. Maybe we would sit with some sophisticated couple at dinner and engage in a deep and fascinating conversation about exotic wonders of the world. With "The City of New Orleans" as the soundtrack, we would see glimpses of the front of the train as it curved sinuously along the rails, bracketed by the forest, maybe a snow covered peak in the background.
Totally refreshed, we would arrive Tuesday evening in Seattle, to stay at our wonderful hotel (paid for by the opera company.) Wednesday, I would maybe do a little bit to help with the show, but mainly we would wake up early, eat a wonderful breakfast, and spend the day exploring Seattle. In this wonderful plan, of course, I feel terrific throughout, there are bountiful amounts of energy and good humor all around, and the day (while we're at it) is long enough to allow for a clam chowder at Pike's Place market, a trip on a ferry boat to some quaint and inviting little hamlet, and a delicious dinner at somewhere with lots of deeply aesthetically pleasing decor. With all this rest and relaxation, our libidos would of course be raring to go and we would spend the rest of the time exploring the wonders of nature in that way as well.
Are you getting how good this plan was? Seriously. After our day off, because of how relaxed and revitalized I would be (because of how smart we were to think up this plan in the first place), I would spend a day in the booth, effortlessly persuading dozens of presenters of large and well-funded theatres that the ever enduring delights of Gilbert and Sullivan would be just what they need in the upcoming season. Thus ensuring the future well-being of the company, I would then reconnect with Roger and we would hop on the train (relaxed and revitalized) on Friday morning and do the whole thing backwards. The gracious waitstaff, the gourmet food, the Eva Marie Saint moment in the roomette, the abundant good humor, the sinuous rails snaking off into the distance... all while a sad lonesome harmonica sang the blues.
We would arrive precisely at 6:15 am in Sacramento (because that's when the timetable said we would) and drive down to LA, arriving (relaxed and revitalized) at home with plenty of time (and good humor) to unpack, relax, and then go attend my friend Cindy's art opening in the evening.
Best. Plan. Ever.
We had a great plan for our vacation, Roger and I did. It was beautiful, it was elegant, it was streamlined, it was relaxing. It incorporated business with pleasure (and thus was somewhat deductible.) It gave me the ability to help out the opera company by being at a very important conference up in Seattle for one day. It gave us the chance to do something romantic, and fun, and relaxing, and cool. It was a great plan.
Here's how this great plan went:
For Labor Day weekend, we would drive up to our friends' farm in Paradise and spend the weekend with them, laughing, and eating fresh vegetables, and playing music. We do this periodically and it's a shot in the arm for the soul, just so fun and relaxing and connected.
Monday, we would drive down to Sacramento. We would meet with friends for dinner and then, at midnight, we would get on the Amtrak Coast Starlight, be greeted by a gracious porter, led to our turned-down roomette, and sleep on the train until waking up in Oregon in the morning. Fully rested, we would go to the observation car (for first class passengers only, which of course we were), eat a delicious hot breakfast (for free because we were first class passengers, or did I mention that already?), and then watch the beauty of the world go by. The day would go by and we would explore the train, eat the (free) meals, feel the rhythmic clickety-clack of the train on the rails, and generally indulge in the romance and ease of train travel. Maybe Roger would play poker and drink bourbon with some Cary Grant types. Maybe we would sit with some sophisticated couple at dinner and engage in a deep and fascinating conversation about exotic wonders of the world. With "The City of New Orleans" as the soundtrack, we would see glimpses of the front of the train as it curved sinuously along the rails, bracketed by the forest, maybe a snow covered peak in the background.
Totally refreshed, we would arrive Tuesday evening in Seattle, to stay at our wonderful hotel (paid for by the opera company.) Wednesday, I would maybe do a little bit to help with the show, but mainly we would wake up early, eat a wonderful breakfast, and spend the day exploring Seattle. In this wonderful plan, of course, I feel terrific throughout, there are bountiful amounts of energy and good humor all around, and the day (while we're at it) is long enough to allow for a clam chowder at Pike's Place market, a trip on a ferry boat to some quaint and inviting little hamlet, and a delicious dinner at somewhere with lots of deeply aesthetically pleasing decor. With all this rest and relaxation, our libidos would of course be raring to go and we would spend the rest of the time exploring the wonders of nature in that way as well.
Are you getting how good this plan was? Seriously. After our day off, because of how relaxed and revitalized I would be (because of how smart we were to think up this plan in the first place), I would spend a day in the booth, effortlessly persuading dozens of presenters of large and well-funded theatres that the ever enduring delights of Gilbert and Sullivan would be just what they need in the upcoming season. Thus ensuring the future well-being of the company, I would then reconnect with Roger and we would hop on the train (relaxed and revitalized) on Friday morning and do the whole thing backwards. The gracious waitstaff, the gourmet food, the Eva Marie Saint moment in the roomette, the abundant good humor, the sinuous rails snaking off into the distance... all while a sad lonesome harmonica sang the blues.
We would arrive precisely at 6:15 am in Sacramento (because that's when the timetable said we would) and drive down to LA, arriving (relaxed and revitalized) at home with plenty of time (and good humor) to unpack, relax, and then go attend my friend Cindy's art opening in the evening.
Best. Plan. Ever.
Monday, September 1, 2014
Loving Kindness
I'm a week and a half out from my last chemo and am still recovering. Feeling better every day, happy to have it behind me. And still very aware, on a daily basis, how powerful this therapy is. I still tire rapidly and without warning. My eyes are still twitching. I still feel it in my bones. But it's behind me, and for that I'm very grateful.
The day of the last treatment, I had a vivid peek into just how lucky I am. We arrived while they were still preparing a room, so we sat in a small waiting area. I was buying some skin lotion online and feeling just a little bit sorry for myself when a woman was wheeled into the infusion area. It was apparent with one glance that she was deeply sick. Her coloring was gray, she was unable to walk, and she was obviously very miserable.
They put her into the room in front of us and we could not help but hear her. She was moaning in a kind of litany of discomfort and complaint as the nurses came in and out, trying to tend to her needs. She was hurting here. She was sick there. They needed to go to the pharmacy to get something for her that she had forgotten to take. The faces of the nurses and attendants were grim as they worked with her.
Whoa. There but for the grace. I was so struck with how easy I have had it. Yes, sure, I am roughly in the same boat, but my boat is a deeply gracious and benign place compared to hers. I was able to joke with my nurses and sail through my treatment, while she was experiencing a soul-threatening, and possibly life-threatening event.
Of course I couldn't do anything. So I just closed my eyes and just started a short loving kindness meditation towards her. This is a practice where you aim your intention at another person and simply, with your mind and spirit, wish them well. There are five main lines that generally comprise a loving kindness meditation, but I adapted them in a free form sort of way for this situation.
May you be filled with loving kindness, I started, in my mind. May you...
But before I could even finish the second line, something interesting had happened. The woman said "I'm sorry," to the nurses. She was still miserable, obviously, but her attitude had suddenly shifted to be other-centric rather than self-centric. I was amazed, and kept going.
May you be filled with feelings of self compassion.
May your body be free of pain.
May your mind, body, and spirit be healed and whole.
May you be filled with calm and peacefulness.
May you be able to relax.
I went on like this for maybe three minutes, silently. I didn't do it heroically or nobly... it just seemed like the only thing I could possibly do to help. And she never became completely happy, nor did her discomfort cease, but her attitude towards her experience did seem to calm down somewhat. She continued to interact with the nurses in a way that was more conciliatory, working with them rather than being completely enmeshed in her own world.
They say that, with prayer, the praying changes the person who is doing it, rather than the external situation. That the miracle is the shift in the relationship to reality, rather in the shift of reality itself.
But, in this case, it wasn't about me, and the external situation did change. Not a huge amount, but perceptibly. The woman's reality altered just enough in that moment to get out of her own pain and come back out into the world. Possibly she was able to get more relief as a result. Possibly the nurses were able to help her more. I don't know. And I don't know how much I had anything to do with it.
I do know that thoughts matter.
A lot.
Both negative and positive thoughts. Both inwardly directed and outwardly directed. I sat there wondering what it would be like if everyone in the world practiced loving kindness towards one another for ... five seconds a day. Five seconds a week, even. Five seconds a year. I bet that would change things, I really do.
Not having the ability to change the world, I can only try to remember this myself. And try it from time to time.
May you be filled with feelings of loving kindness.
May you be safe from inner and outer harm.
May your lives be peaceful and easy.
May you be free from mental and physical pain.
May you be happy.
The day of the last treatment, I had a vivid peek into just how lucky I am. We arrived while they were still preparing a room, so we sat in a small waiting area. I was buying some skin lotion online and feeling just a little bit sorry for myself when a woman was wheeled into the infusion area. It was apparent with one glance that she was deeply sick. Her coloring was gray, she was unable to walk, and she was obviously very miserable.
They put her into the room in front of us and we could not help but hear her. She was moaning in a kind of litany of discomfort and complaint as the nurses came in and out, trying to tend to her needs. She was hurting here. She was sick there. They needed to go to the pharmacy to get something for her that she had forgotten to take. The faces of the nurses and attendants were grim as they worked with her.
Whoa. There but for the grace. I was so struck with how easy I have had it. Yes, sure, I am roughly in the same boat, but my boat is a deeply gracious and benign place compared to hers. I was able to joke with my nurses and sail through my treatment, while she was experiencing a soul-threatening, and possibly life-threatening event.
Of course I couldn't do anything. So I just closed my eyes and just started a short loving kindness meditation towards her. This is a practice where you aim your intention at another person and simply, with your mind and spirit, wish them well. There are five main lines that generally comprise a loving kindness meditation, but I adapted them in a free form sort of way for this situation.
May you be filled with loving kindness, I started, in my mind. May you...
But before I could even finish the second line, something interesting had happened. The woman said "I'm sorry," to the nurses. She was still miserable, obviously, but her attitude had suddenly shifted to be other-centric rather than self-centric. I was amazed, and kept going.
May you be filled with feelings of self compassion.
May your body be free of pain.
May your mind, body, and spirit be healed and whole.
May you be filled with calm and peacefulness.
May you be able to relax.
I went on like this for maybe three minutes, silently. I didn't do it heroically or nobly... it just seemed like the only thing I could possibly do to help. And she never became completely happy, nor did her discomfort cease, but her attitude towards her experience did seem to calm down somewhat. She continued to interact with the nurses in a way that was more conciliatory, working with them rather than being completely enmeshed in her own world.
They say that, with prayer, the praying changes the person who is doing it, rather than the external situation. That the miracle is the shift in the relationship to reality, rather in the shift of reality itself.
But, in this case, it wasn't about me, and the external situation did change. Not a huge amount, but perceptibly. The woman's reality altered just enough in that moment to get out of her own pain and come back out into the world. Possibly she was able to get more relief as a result. Possibly the nurses were able to help her more. I don't know. And I don't know how much I had anything to do with it.
I do know that thoughts matter.
A lot.
Both negative and positive thoughts. Both inwardly directed and outwardly directed. I sat there wondering what it would be like if everyone in the world practiced loving kindness towards one another for ... five seconds a day. Five seconds a week, even. Five seconds a year. I bet that would change things, I really do.
Not having the ability to change the world, I can only try to remember this myself. And try it from time to time.
May you be filled with feelings of loving kindness.
May you be safe from inner and outer harm.
May your lives be peaceful and easy.
May you be free from mental and physical pain.
May you be happy.
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